Rear Derailleur for XC 204.

I noticed on my XC 204 that my Deore LX has a tendency to rub the chainstay. I was wondering why that rear derailleur came with a little rubber gizmo around the body... cause that's right where it's rubbing.

It's not a big deal, but it seems to provide SOME shifting issues since in certain gears, it's not freely moving - it has to shift based on how smoothly it can "rub" past that point in the chainstay. (the large chainring and 1-3 smallest cogs seem to be where shifting issues occur)

I went ahead and grabbed a Deore Shadow M592 rear derailleur, simply because their description of its low profile design tends to be better when trying to avoid chainstay rub. What rear derailleurs are you other XC 104/204/604 riders running? I'm hoping my impulse buy was a smart one.

I had a LX on mine also and dumped it for a SLX and the bumping is gone. It's almost like Shimano knew the LX would bump some chainstays so they put a rubber bumper on because of that.

I have zero problems with it on my hardtail, and in fact I rather am very fond of the Deore LX. It's one of the better derailleurs I've had. It's just with this new frame I was kind of like, well that sucks... but hey - it'll serve nicely as a spare, or perhaps back on my hardtail if I ever get to rebuilding it.

Is your SLX a shadow? I'm trying to understand the differences here, as to whether or not it's just better to get a shadow for this frame, or if there's plenty of non-shadow derailleurs that'll work and I just got the luck of the draw with one odd ball derailleur that rubs.

The bumping/slapping chainstay issue seems to occur with Shimano rear derailleurs on several different bikes not just the XC-X04's. There are quite a few videos on youtube and other bike sites that show the derailleurs bouncing quite a bit compared to SRAM derailleurs.

Personally I run a SRAM X.9 and have zero slap issues. I'm not knocking Shimano in any way/shape/form, my Fisher hardtail is a Shimano setup, but I prefer the SRAM any day.

C..

The amount of intelligence on the planet is finite .. the population keeps growing ..

The bumping/slapping chainstay issue seems to occur with Shimano rear derailleurs on several different bikes not just the XC-X04's. There are quite a few videos on youtube and other bike sites that show the derailleurs bouncing quite a bit compared to SRAM derailleurs.

Personally I run a SRAM X.9 and have zero slap issues. I'm not knocking Shimano in any way/shape/form, my Fisher hardtail is a Shimano setup, but I prefer the SRAM any day.

C..

Performance wise, I've seen nothing from either company that is a sure fire "why you should use this" winner, since both perform beautifully. But it does seem from a visual inspection that SRAM tends to be a little bit slimmer. But hey, if Shimano has low profile options out there to rival it (which it seems they do) and I can utilize my 2 day old shifters with it, that's a winner.